Some day laborers report being abused and cheated in their pay

[Judi Lynn]

Jan. 21, 2006, 11:46PM
SEEKING WORK, FINDING TROUBLE
Some day laborers report being abused and cheated in their pay
Researchers surprised by the pervasiveness of wage violations, dangers on job

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
New York Times

The first nationwide study on day laborers has found that such workers are a nationwide phenomenon, with 117,600 people gathering at more than 500 hiring sites to look for work on a typical day.

The survey found that three-fourths of day laborers are illegal immigrants and that more than half said employers had cheated them on wages in the previous two months.

The study, based on interviews with 2,660 workers at 264 hiring sites in 20 states and the District of Columbia, found that day laborers earn a median of $10 an hour and $700 a month. The study said that only a small number earn more than $15,000 a year.

The professors who conducted the study said the most surprising finding was the pervasiveness of wage violations and dangerous conditions that day laborers face.

"We were disturbed by the incredibly high incidence of wage violations," said study author Nik Theodore, of the University of Illinois at Chicago. "We also found a very high level of injuries."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3603563.html
(Free registration required)

[Erika]

1. W's world to help corporatism - at all costs

Bodies to rent to the rich at the cheapest possible price. W likes his big buds to optimize their profits. The hell with workers.

[Trillo]

2. I can believe that "employers cheated them".

Hasn't everyone been cheated by an employer?

[whatelseisnew]

3. CIW is a successful worker coalition

http://www.ciw-online.org /

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

[MatrixEscape]

4. Fucking bubble-folk!

That goes to show you how stupid and encapsulated the academics can turn out to he!

Ever done day labor?

Don't you know that the capitalistic, bottom-line, profit motivated world assures you that this kind of abuse is not only mandatory but could be visited upon you and yours someday? What is there to stop that? The dollar rules and you do not matter! Tou are, ware, and always will be, a number, a statistic, a robot of profit.

Gosh, it takes a naive perspective to rule out the bottom-line of facts. Yes, somebody will PAY for your exploits and wealth, in the end.

But then, so many of you are so far removed from that. You are probably worrying about prserving your buger-world with an SUV economy wondering why that ain't a right?

[flordehinojos]

5. anything goes ... the bushes don't care!

:)

[fasttense]

6. I use to work picking flowers along side illegals in Florida

I eventually quit because of the chemicals they would dump on us. They wouldn't even wait until we were out of the field before they began spraying. The stuff got in your mouth, eyes and lungs. The illegals never complained though they were concerned. They were afraid of losing their jobs.

But the professor doing the study obviously lead a sheltered life if he found this surprising.

"The professors who conducted the study said the most surprising finding was the pervasiveness of wage violations and dangerous conditions that day laborers face."

[NashVegas]

7. I Was Tutoring English Last Summer

To a couple of (legal) Mexican immigrants. One of them injured his collarbone on the job. His employer took care of some - but not all - of the medical bills, and when he complained, he started getting less hours. And there was nothing he could do about it, because he was getting paid under the table.

I encouraged him to quit and find someone who would put him on a legitimate payroll, but I doubt he ever did.

[BiggJawn]

8. Not only "Day Labourers".

I'd venture that a large percentage of minimum-wage grunts in this country get ripped-off and fucked over by their employers in this country.

I know I did.

[Glidescube]

9. The supreme court ruled that illegal aliens dint have to be paid.

[ret5hd]

10. Proud of that?

If you really wanted to solve the illegal problem, everytime an illegal employer was caught, that employer would be forced to pay all the illegal emplyees back pay, bringing their total wages to $100/hr. And confiscate the business of repeat offenders. And a very stiff prison term. And derision and social ostricization from their neighbors.

But then, you'd have to pay a little more for the roof on your storm-damaged house, and that head of lettuce, and that wax job on your Ford Excursion, and that truck load of sod for that new McMansion, and that cut-with-a-fork rib-eye that comes with 2 sprigs of asparagus and a salad, and all the thousands of things that you depend on to keep your beautiful insulated pampered life free of the grime and ugliness and sweat that most of the world calls reality.

But don't think about that.

[fasttense]

14. Would you really pay more if companies were seriously fined for hiring

illegals? I'm wondering. I know this is the common excuse for keeping illegal workers, but I wonder.

Corporations are currently raking in 35% increase in productivity in the last five years, yet legal worker's wages have Not increased in the last five years. So the additional cost of labor, if you took illegals out of the picture, would be taken out of these corporation's profits and Not necessarily added back into the cost of the item.

If they charged too much for their end product (and they didn't have a monopoly) consumers would reduce the amount they bought. How much profit does any corporation need to get? I wonder if there was a closer link between wages and corporation productivity, then perhaps these thieves that call themselves CEOs would not get away with such exorbitant salaries, benefits and stock options.

[bikebloke]

11. Witnessed in Seattle

When I first moved to Seattle, just to survive while trying to settle down, I took a day labor job through a pimp agency. They were docking everybody for state income tax. Well, Washington state doesn't have income tax. I decided to risk starving rather than work through them again.

There were also stories of day laborers picked up at the local "slave markets". At the end of the work day, they'd be brought back, with the employers driving away without paying them.

[DBoon]

12. Similar abuses existing among dockworkers decades ago

Longshoremen were hired on a temporary basis via what was called a "shape-up", a degrading exercise similar to what day laborers have to go through.

What eventually killed the shape-up was the (often violent) unionization of dockworkers. Employers could only hire through a union hiring hall

In my dreams, I wish we had a similar arrangement for today's day laborers.

In 1933 the economic depression that started in 1929 hit the nation full-force. West Coast longshoremen, who had long suffered their own special kind of depression through chronic job insecurity, now experienced even deeper hardship. Genuine union organization became a matter of survival. The longshoremen once again applied for and obtained a charter from the ILA – but this time they established their organization as a single unit on a coastwise and industry-wide basis, thus avoiding the mistakes of the past.

Their demands were simple: a union-controlled hiring hall that would end all forms of discrimination and favoritism in hiring and equalize work opportunities; a coastwise contract, with all workers on the Pacific Coast receiving the same basic wages and working under the same protected hours and conditions; and a six-hour work day with a fair hourly wage.

http://www.ilwu.org/history/ilwu-story/ilwu-story.cfm?renderforprint=1

[f-bush]

13. Under Shrub

and the crooked bunch of mother fuckers helping him run the country...doesn't surprise me one bit. The only thing that will clean ALL of this mess up is REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!